


Want versus Need

by glacis



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-27
Updated: 2010-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-06 17:53:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacis/pseuds/glacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During and after the events of the episode Darla - Lindsey's perspective on love, lust, and vampires of both genders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Want versus Need

Want versus Need, by Glacis. Incorporates and immediately follows "Darla."

The drive out to the Valley was as long and congested as it always was, even at one in the afternoon. Lindsey maneuvered the Benz confidently through the maze of SUVs, trucks, clunkers and the occasional Jag clogging the 405 and couldn't keep the smile that was lurking from breaking through. Finally things were going right. Lilah's little telekinetic mess-up was over, Darla was settling in nicely, he'd won in court yesterday against staggering odds, and his phantom hand had finally stopped itching all night. Life was looking up.

Or it was, until he opened the door to the Firm's apartment and stepped into a nightmare of shattered glass.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the shadows from stepping in out of the strong sunlight. Something broke under his shoe, and he looked down, then around, to see the previously elegant apartment had been reduced to shambles. Walking slowly, warily over to the mirror on the wall, wondering what had attacked Darla and if she'd managed to fight it off, uncertain of what he'd discover when he found her, he was startled to hear her voice. It was shaky, weak, but composed.

"Hello, Lindsey."

She looked like hell. She was curled up in a chair, head fallen against the side cushion, hands dangling limply in her lap. He stepped toward her and realized in that instant that nothing had attacked Darla.

Nothing except Darla, that was.

Kneeling down in front of her, he took her hands awkwardly in his one, peering down at the wounds on her fingers and wrists. "You're bleedin'." He reached into his pocket for his handkerchief. The cuts weren't deep, but they had to sting.

"I guess I am." She sounded faintly surprised. He frowned up at her, then looked back at her cuts, cleaning her skin carefully.

"Something happened." Tell me, his tone invited. She didn't respond as he expected. She seldom did.

"Oh, god, yes. So many things, I remember them all." Her voice was almost sprightly. It sat ill with her generally distraught appearance. "Which one were you thinking of?"

He didn't like the look in her eye. There was an edge of insanity there that made him nervous. "It was too soon." The whole situation had to be traumatic for her. They'd thrown her in too fast, not given her time to adjust. "We shouldn't've sent you to him. We should have waited."

Her hand brushing back his hair startled him, and he looked up at her, caught in her eyes. They were compelling, a warm rich color like properly warmed brandy. He got the same buzz looking into her eyes. She smiled at him dreamily, and leaned a little toward him. He couldn't let go of her hands.

"Lindsey." She sounded whimsical, interested, flirtatious. "You never talk about yourself, Lindsey. Got a girlfriend? A boyfriend?" Her left eyebrow quirked at him and he couldn't say a word. She didn't let it stop her. "Someone special?"

Swallowing to moisten his mouth, he answered before he could allow himself to think, concentrating on binding her wounds, not wanting to hear what he thought she might be asking. "There's no one." And there wasn't. No one he could claim, anyway. No one he really wanted to think about.

Angel didn't count, after all. Did he? No. Of course he didn't. Angel hated him.

She was musing aloud again, and he tuned in to her words. "No, no, there really isn't, is there? You can be with someone a hundred and fifty years, think ya know 'em, still doesn't work out. Angelus. Oh, you should have seen us together." Now she sounded nostalgic. It irritated him a little. She was thinking of Angel, of course. Just not with Lindsey. And not in the present. Memories weren't going to do them any good here. Not in the middle of what looked like a crisis.

"He was a different person then." Lindsey tried to bring her back to reality.

She didn't miss a beat. "And so was I. Now do you know what we've become?" Her eyes were burning into him again. He took the challenge and threw it back to her.

"Enemies." If he knew nothing else, he knew that. She surprised him yet again.

"Much worse." He didn't understand, and she smiled beatifically at him. "Now we're soul-mates." She said the word as if it was the worst possible thing in the world to be. Then she laughed, a breathless and slightly hysterical sound that made him hold even tighter to her hands.

Perhaps, given what they'd been, what Angel was, it _was_ the worst possible thing in the world to be.

It took him over an hour, with only one hand to work with and Darla not being particularly helpful, to get her cleaned and bandaged up. After he'd fetched her shoes, so she wouldn't cut her feet, and called the cleaning service to take care of the mess, he stood in front of her, hand in his pocket, staring down at her face. She stared back up at him, a weird mixture of indifference, challenge and bewilderment in her eyes. He had to get back to work, but he didn't trust her alone here. There was something strange about her, stranger than usual.

Somehow it didn't surprise him that whatever it was turned him on as much as it confused him. She'd been doing that to him since they raised her. Angel had been doing it since they first met. Maybe it was a family trait. Now that he knew Darla, he could see where Angel got it.

Coming to a decision, he reached out his hand and pulled her gently to her feet. She clung to his hand for an instant, her forehead dipping to touch his shoulder, and he wished fiercely that he had both hands again. He wanted to touch her hair, wanted to touch her skin, but didn't want to let go of her hand. Then the moment passed, and she stepped away from him.

"Careful of the glass," he said automatically. She smiled at him over her shoulder, a courtesan's special, spiced with an ounce of what he told himself was real warmth.

"Always taking care of me, Lindsey," she teased him. He liked the sound of his name on her lips, and knew that was why she used it so often. She knew precisely how to wind him around her little finger.

He was content to be wound. For the moment at least. He'd survived this long by being flexible. He'd play the hand he was dealt as long as it lasted. Smiling slightly at her, he ushered her out the door and into his Benz.

The sunlight made her flinch. She turned her face away from his and stared out the window at the traffic as it passed.

"Is there anything you need? While we're out. We could stop and get something. If you need anything." He cursed silently. He made his living with his tongue, but around her it turned to stone. Another family trait she shared with Angel.

"There's nothing you can give me, Lindsey," she said quietly, and he felt his heart close. Then she turned and smiled at him, and the sting faded a little. "You're very sweet, did you know that?"

He could feel his face turning red. Clearing his throat, he tried, "No." It came out a little rusty. She chuckled.

"Hidden talent." Then she leaned her head against the rest and closed her eyes, effectively ending the conversation. The drive south was just as nasty as the drive north had been, and he concentrated on the traffic, ignoring everything else.

Everything else but the sound of her breathing. He couldn't ignore that even if he was dead.

By the time they made it back downtown, he was so hard he was aching. He thought of death, and dust, and the sound the scythe had made as it sliced through his wrist, and ignored the throb he always got when the image of Angel towering over him as he lay on the floor was added to the mix of memories.

Then he thought of Holland, and the Firm's plans, whatever they might entail. The tactile press of a stake pushing into Angel's chest, and the startlement in the dark brown eyes as they turned to dust. The ache faded enough to allow him to walk. He nodded at the guard in the lobby, escorting Darla swiftly into the elevator then through the hall, his maimed arm carefully around her waist.

Once they were in his office, clear of prying eyes, he wasn't sure what to do with her. His body had plenty of ideas, but he seldom allowed his body to overrule his mind. Every time he had it had been a disaster.

"You hungry?" he asked, as it struck him that he didn't know when last she'd eaten. Grabbing the remote, he opened the drapes, letting in the sunshine. She looked at the view, then away, then back as if fascinated. He glanced out the window to see what held her attention. "I can run down the hall and grab some sandwiches from the vending machine if you want. It's not exactly gourmet cuisine, but --"

The sound of the door opening and feeling Darla tense beside him caused Lindsey to turn around. His boss was staring at him. The look in his eyes was completely blank. Lindsey knew that look. It boded ill for someone. Probably himself.

"Lindsey." So many shadings of meaning for a simple name. He nodded in response.

"Holland." Cautiously. His boss turned briefly to Darla.

"Darla. How are you?" Ever the gentleman, in the precious few seconds before he cut out your heart. Or forced you to eat your own liver. Lindsey made sure the shudder he felt went unseen.

"I'm fine, Holland. Good to see you." She sounded like she really meant it. She must have made a fortune when she was human.

"Always a pleasure."

It sounded much more perfunctory coming from Holland. Oh, well, she'd had more centuries to practice. Maybe. The stray thought struck Lindsey that Holland might not be as human as he appeared. Things and people so seldom were at Wolfram and Hart. _That_ shudder was harder to hide.

"Lindsey, a word." It was a command, not a request. "If you'll excuse us," Holland smiled at Darla. She nodded back.

Lindsey moved around her, careful not to brush against her as he left. He certainly didn't need to be sporting an erection while talking to his boss. The man, or whatever he was, never missed anything. As he was shutting the door behind him, he looked over at her reassuringly. "I'll be right outside."

She simply looked at him. He had no idea how to interpret it, so he didn't try.

Not that he had much time to worry about it. Holland was reaming him out, in his own quietly gut-churning way, as soon as they were alone in the hallway. Lindsey could feel his spine stiffening. There were times when it pissed him off that most of the male world was taller than he was. This was one of them. He reacted by drawing himself up to his full height and firming his jaw. Subordinate but not submissive. He'd done what he had to do, and if Holland ever paused for breath, he'd tell him so.

"I thought we were very clear on this matter. Now that she's made contact, it's not ... prudent to have her on the premises." There was a distinct threat beneath the urbane tone. Lindsey swallowed but kept his composure.

"I know. I just -- I didn't feel I could leave her alone. I think there may be a problem, sir. She seems to be displaying a post-traumatic --" He didn't get the justification finished before Holland interrupted him.

"She's cracking up." He seemed to be talking more to himself than Lindsey.

"No, I wouldn't say that --" Lindsey tried to defend her and Holland interrupted again.

"Oh, she's way _ahead_ of schedule."

That hadn't been what Lindsey'd been expecting. This was expected? This was on a schedule?! He let it sink in, schooling his face to show nothing, frantic thought given away by the slow beat that passed before he answered. "What?"

"We'll have to accelerate matters. But I think we're ready." Holland still seemed to be talking to himself, then snapped back to attention, smiling at Lindsey. The smile had more than its requisite number of teeth in it. "Lindsey, you did the right thing. Good work. Don't let her leave the building." He turned to walk away, leaving Lindsey feeling pole-axed. Then Holland turned back momentarily as a thought struck him. "Oh, and letter openers, staple gun, even ball point pens, anything with a sharp edge -- you may want to remove those sorts of items from your office, just in case."

He stood there, speechless, as his boss walked jauntily down the hallway away from him, practically whistling, he was so pleased with himself. Thoughts were racing through Lindsey's brain. This made no sense. If the plan was for Darla to seduce Angel to the dark side, what good would it do to have her lose her marbles? This was expected? This was, apparently, counted on, another thought that made Lindsey's stomach hurt. They expected her to try to hurt herself? And they were going to use that? Against Angel?

How? The single word echoed through his thoughts as he slowly walked down to the vending machine. Picking turkey and chicken salad at random, he fed the machine dollar bills and stared blankly into the glass, not seeing his own reflection, trying to work through the ramifications of Holland's opaque plan. There had to be a thread of logic in the mass of insanity that this project had become. Holland's thinking patterns, and the senior partners' plans, were often complex to the point where normal humans, and even lawyers trained in triple think, could make no sense of them. This one was giving him a headache to match his stomachache.

He hadn't come any closer to a conclusion by the time he got back to his office. Using his prosthetic hand to bump the door open, both sandwiches clasped in his good hand, he shouldered the door shut and walked in. Darla was standing up against the glass windows, staring out over Los Angeles, lost in thought. The side of his mouth curled into the beginning of a smile. She was luminescent. Knowing her past, knowing her cruelty, all he could see at that moment was her fragility.

"Darla." He tried to call her back from wherever she'd gone.

"Say that again." She sounded confused. Her question made him feel the same way, like the carpet had turned to sand under his feet and he was about to lose his footing. The usual situation he found himself in whenever he talked to her.

Or Angel, for that matter.

He dropped the sandwiches on the desk and tried to answer the question he'd heard in her voice. "I just ... uh, I just said your name. Darla."

"Sounds so odd, doesn't it?"

He thought it sounded lovely. "I don't know what you mean."

"It wasn't my name when I was human." She threw him another glance he couldn't interpret, then stared back out through the glass. "The first time I was human, I mean."

An unexpected spike of tenderness shot through him. How many people had actually cared about this woman, in her life or in her unlife? How many had she allowed to care? Only Angel. Lindsey swallowed. "What was your name?" he asked quietly.

Her answer was pensive. "Hm. I don't remember. I'm not her, whoever she was. I was Darla for so long. Then I wasn't. Then I wasn't anything." Her voice gathered strength, but remained as thoughtful. "I just stopped. He killed me and I was gone." Darla turned away from the view to look over at Lindsey. Her eyes were sharp with concentration, like she was working through a knotty problem. "Then you brought me back."

Unsure where she was going with this, he contented himself with a simple "yes." His eyes followed her watchfully as she moved slowly toward him.

"What did you bring back, Lindsey? What am I? Did you bring back that girl whose name I can't remember? Or did you bring back something else? That other thing?" She stopped a foot in front of him. He stared at her, mesmerized and confused, caught up in the urgency in her eyes.

"Both." He blinked, like a cat, trying to unwind the maze of her thoughts. "Neither." He shook his head, knowing he was missing what she needed to hear but not knowing how to rectify his error. "You're just you. Whatever that is." He wasn't sure any more. Then she tossed him a curveball and sent his mind directly down into his pants.

"Why haven't you kissed me?" His eyes dropped and all he could see was her mouth. "You've been dying for it, haven't you?"

Yes, he didn't say. "I didn't know if you wanted me to." He could hear the hesitation in his own voice.

"Why should that matter? Do you think I ever hesitated when I wanted something? Life's too short. Believe me, I know. Four hundred years, and still too short."

In that instant, she was completely Darla, no hint of the lost little girl he'd heard when she'd asked who she was. It compelled him forward that final step, closing the space between them. He ran his fingers into her hair, cupping her head in his palm, and licked his lips unconsciously. Leaning forward, he touched her lips gently to his, sucking with a butterfly touch on her lower lip as she drew his upper lip between hers. A single kiss, a second, slightly harder, then a third, gentling again. Her breath was sweet on his face. Her eyes were half-closed.

"Mm." She sounded faintly amused. "That's how humans get what they want, I remember that much."

Lindsey gave her another nibbling kiss, and laughed at himself for feeling breathless. "D'you like it?" He couldn't stop the question.

"It's nice."

They could be talking about the chicken salad, for all the excitement she showed. He smiled faintly. As their mouths almost touched again, she breathed over his mouth, "It's not me you want to screw."

His brain froze. His cock jumped. A mental image of Angel, so close all he could see was dark eyes, so close he could feel the chill radiating off the vampire's skin, flashed through his mind. Lindsey drew back just far enough to see her clearly. Her eyes were open again, all lazy amusement, staring up at him. Through him. He blinked, falling back on habits of a lifetime to cover his turbulent thoughts. "What?" He blinked again, a cautious cat.

"It's him."

In the short pause that followed, Lindsey was absolutely convinced that Darla could read his mind. Oddly enough, he found the thought that she knew he wanted Angel to be even more arousing than the thought of having her. Right there. On his desk. Which was pretty damned arousing all on its own.

"You all think you can use me to get to Angel."

The plural pronoun barely registered. He was nodding yes before his mouth opened to say, "Maybe." He stared down at her for a scant moment, then kissed her again, the gentleness gone in a wave of hunger. He swung her around onto his desk, scattering the contents on the floor, his maimed arm coming up around her back, his good hand buried in her hair, her arms around him, her body beneath his.

He nearly missed the question, buried under the thunder of their combined heart beats.

"What am I?" She sounded desperate. Alone. Confused. Heartbreakingly young. In that instant, he couldn't care less.

"I don't know," he muttered between kisses, bending her further back, burrowing into her. "And I don't care."

She writhed beneath him, twisting her head to the side, mouthing along his jaw then striking as swiftly as a snake, biting him hard on the right side of his neck. The bright pain cut through his passion, and he growled, tearing himself away from her. His hand went to his neck, feeling the burn of blood under the surface, the slight smear of fluid where she'd broken the skin. She hadn't held back. He glared at her, feeling his own hunger in the way he stared, seeing it rebounding back at him beneath her anger.

"Now do you care?" Wild. Darla. Challenging him.

"No!" he growled again, heading back to her, meeting the challenge head-on.

"That's how vampires get what they want. What am I?" The first comment was all Darla, arrogant with it; the second question was lost, bewildered. She was vacillating wildly between what she had been and what she'd become, and her uncertainty was tearing them both apart. He didn't know how to answer, didn't know what to do. His instinct said to hold her, and failing any other alternative, he tried to do just that.

"Darla." He reached out to her. She swayed toward him, staring up into his eyes.

"Is that it? Am I Darla?"

"Yes!" He wanted to kiss her again.

"Careful. Darla would snap you in half." Her voice was feral, then immediately plaintive. "Is that who I am?"

His head was spinning. She pulled away and turned back toward the window, staring bleakly out across the city once again. Lindsey tried to reach her with his words, since he'd failed with his touch.

"I understand what you're going through." He didn't, really, but he was trying.

"No. Nobody understands." Darla immediately caught him in the lie. "Nobody _can_ understand. I can feel this body dying, Lindsey." She turned back to him, and he ached for her, for her pain and for her need. "I can feel it decaying, moment by moment. It's being eaten away by this thing inside of it. It's a cancer, this soul!"

He reached out to her with his hand, and she stared at it, then at him. Wrapping her arms around her midriff, she turned her back to him and stared back out over the sun-swept buildings and bustling, oblivious people below.

"What can I do?" he asked quietly, coming up behind her, stopping a careful three inches away, staring at her reflection in the glass over her shoulder. "What do you need?"

"I want the pain to stop, Lindsey. Can you do that?" Her eyes met his in the glass. "No, of course you can't." She answered her own question, not giving him time to reply. "After all, if you'd wanted that, you wouldn't have raised me as a human, would you?" Breaking the connection between them, she drew herself up, completely Darla now, no hint of the bewildered human girl buried beneath the weight of a soul carrying four hundred years worth of sin. "You have work to do, Lindsey, I'm sure. Don't worry about me. I'm fine."

His hand dropped away, and he turned back to his desk. The sandwiches mocked him. "You hungry?" he asked automatically, seventeen years of Southern hospitality, poor as they'd been, drilled into him, not letting him allow anything to go to waste. Behind him, she laughed.

It was a sweet sound.

Lindsey glanced over his shoulder. She was looking at him again, with approval this time. He grinned, not quite sure what had changed, but willing to go with the flow. As always. "Turkey or chicken salad?"

"I've always had a taste for things that taste like chicken," she teased, and he gave her a questioning look. She laughed again, to herself this time, and waved him out of the way, reaching for the sandwich containers, pushing the turkey on rye over toward him.

"I'm fine, Lindsey. Do your work." Taking the sandwich, she turned her back to him, curling up on the couch, staring off into the distance.

He bit his lip, knowing she was far from fine, not having a clue what to do about it. Then he looked down at the brief he had to file by five o'clock that evening, glanced over at the desk clock reading two eighteen, and did what he did best -- prioritized emergencies.

Settling in for a solid two hours of legal magic, he was aware of her every second of the rest of the afternoon. He didn't look around once. When she needed him -- when, not if, he told himself -- she would ask him. Until then he'd do the only thing he knew to do. Give her time, give her space, and make damned sure all sharp objects stayed far out of reach.

By the time he left for court, Darla was sleeping, curled up in a ball like an exhausted child. He stood over her for a long time, no sound in the office but the tick of the clock on his desk and her deep, relaxed breathing, and watched the shadows her lashes cast on her cheeks. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to fuck her. He wanted to take away her pain. He wanted to take Angel away from her. He wanted to win.

The last thought was the one that stayed with him through the darkening of the day as he fought his way back through traffic to the Firm. There were too many ramifications to the tangle of relationships between himself and Darla, himself and Angel, Angel and Darla. Too many plans from too many interested parties, too many angles to cover, too many possibilities.

Opening the door to his office, the one possibility he should have considered since she'd first said that no one could understand her reared up and slapped him across the face.

Angel. Of course. Cursed for over a hundred years with a soul. Who could understand her torment, if not he? Lindsey heard tears in her voice.

"It's been four centuries since I've had to be afraid of anything, and now I'm sick with it ... Angel."

It was a self-evident question, but he found himself asking it anyway. "Darla ... what are you doin'?" He was upset, he could hear it in the accent thickening his voice even more than he could feel it. Mostly he just felt numb.

She said quietly, painfully, into the telephone, "Help me."

Asking Angel. Not him. Lindsey walked cautiously forward. "Just put down the phone. Hang up the phone. It's okay." She turned to face him, clutching the telephone to her chest, and his breath caught at the glimmer of light tracing the tear tracks on her cheeks. "It's okay. Alright? Just put it down."

From behind him came the unwelcome intrusion of an unknown guard's voice. "Mr. McDonald, is everything all right?"

He didn't have time for this. "Yes," he answered curtly, not bothering to look. "We're fine." Or we will be, if she'll just talk to me, and not to Angel.

The guard didn't get the message. "Mr. Manners said you might need some help with her."

Damn Holland! Lindsey spared a glare for the interloper at the door. "No," he said simply. "Leave." It was an order. He looked back at Darla. The expression on her face made his heart hurt.

"I have to go to him, Lindsey."

"Don't say that." Please. I had to go to him once, too, and it nearly killed me to leave. Don't go through that. Not with him. Stay with me. He put the pleas he couldn't articulate into his eyes, hoping she would read them.

"He's the only one." She was oblivious to his pain, caught too firmly in the grip of her own. "He can help me."

"No, I can help you, too." He desperately wanted her to believe it. He desperately wanted to believe it himself.

"No." She shook her head, still clutching the telephone to her breast, tears slowly dripping from the corners of her eyes. "No, you can't. You don't have it in you. I'm sorry."

"Why don't we all take a walk down to Mr. Manners' office?" The fucking guard just wouldn't _go away_ and Lindsey couldn't take the distraction.

"I can handle this, alright? Go!" His attention split between Darla and the idiot guard, Lindsey felt his control of the situation, slight as it had been, slipping away.

"She's not leaving the building."

Pompous _asshole_. That was it. Lindsey lost his temper. Glaring at the guard, he roared, "**I SAID GO!**"

That moment of looking away was all it took for Darla to break. There was the suggestion of movement in his peripheral vision, then a tremendous clout against the side of his head, and he staggered, eyes blurring from pain-tears. He realized that she'd hit him with the base of the telephone at the same instant that he saw the guard lurch toward her, and saw her reach for the gun in the man's holster, and knew everything had truly gone to hell in a hand-basket.

Too late.

Always a step behind. A day late and a dollar short.

Ignoring his mother's voice nagging at the back of his memory along with the headache threatening to send him to his knees, Lindsey did what he did best and worked through the pain. Gathering Darla's shaking form in front of him, he swept her out the door, eyes searching for armed response, knowing that a gunshot on the premises of Wolfram and Hart brought immediate and deadly reaction.

Unless, of course, it was at a senior associate's direction. This one hadn't been.

"C'mon. Let's go. You've got to come with me." He was urging her with his voice even as he guided her with his body. Where the hell they were going to go, he didn't know.

As they ran, hand in hand, along the back hall to the service elevator, the pain finally cleared enough for him to work out the bare bones of a plan. Once in the elevator, he dropped her hand and rummaged in his pocket for his keys. He took a deep breath and willed his voice to be steady.

Darla was cringing in the corner, eyes huge and wild. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her body, and she looked like a strong wind would shatter her. He hoped like hell she'd be able to follow his instructions. It might be their only chance. Pressing the keys into her shaking hand, he waited until her fingers wrapped around the key-ring then cupped her chin in his hand. Raising her face until she could look in his eyes, he spoke to her as calmly as he could.

"It's going to be okay, alright? But you have to do as I tell you. You don't want them to catch you." He waited for her nod, uncertain as it was, before he continued, hoping she was understanding his words. "There's a silver Mercedes on the B level of the parking garage just below the building. I want you to take it, and go to this address." He tugged a business card out of his jacket pocket, scrabbling for a pen in the breast pocket. The numbers were scraggly but legible. "It's a friend's house." It was a bolt hole, and he didn't _think_ the Firm knew about it, but it should be safe long enough for him to meet her there. By then, all bets were off. "Go there, stay there tonight, alright? I'll see you there tomorrow morning, and we'll go from there." He pressed the card into her other hand, then touched her cheek gently. Darla looked out of her eyes, and she looked immeasurably old. He bit his lip again. "It's gonna be okay."

In a split second, Darla disappeared and the scared little girl showed up again. She nodded, and he pushed her gently out the elevator door into the basement access corridor.

"Go on, now, go on," he urged, trying to put as much reassurance in his voice as he could muster. "It'll be okay."

She didn't look like she believed him, but she left. He watched her go, then punched the button for the third floor, and went to judge the response and calm the waters.

To his surprise and suspicion, there wasn't much choppy water to calm. No guards, human or otherwise, apprehended him as he walked through the halls toward the main elevator bank. No alarms were going off. This wasn't right.

He slowed to a saunter, then peered around the hall as nonchalantly as possible.

Nobody was even looking at him sideways.

"Holland," he whispered, a sub-vocalization that barely disturbed the air.

Plans and counter-plans, wheels within wheels, and he was a step behind, as always. He took the stairs up to his office, not the elevator. He needed the time to think. Not that he had much to offer, by way of explanation. I acted on my instincts? I didn't want to see her dead? I thought the project was more important than a single, pushy, incredibly stupid and now very dead guard? We can't use her as bait for Angel if we kill her? If we had to raise her again the schedule would be thoroughly fucked?

Lindsey still didn't have a single idea what he was going to say when he opened the door to his office to find, as expected, Holland Manners leaning against his desk, not-smiling at him. He had a complacent air about him, as if Lindsey had done precisely what was expected of him. Normally, that air reassured Lindsey. At the moment it gave him the jitters.

Holland was holding a remote in his hand. There was a large television/VCR on a wheeled cart in the middle of the office. Lindsey had a sick feeling he knew what tonight's feature film would be. When he'd cracked, in the privacy of his office, that he and Darla should have their own series, this wasn't exactly what he'd meant.

Holland waved him to a chair. "Have a seat, Lindsey. There's something I'd like to show you."

He watched in stoic silence. It was as pathetic as he'd expected it to be. Himself, at an impasse, losing control of Darla, of the guard, of the whole damned situation. Darla blindsiding him, himself staggering around like an idiot, then grabbing her up and lurching out the door. It'd make a good keystone kops comedy if it hadn't been real. Lindsey felt like throwing up. His head dipped and he cradled his aching forehead in his hand.

"You not only allowed her to escape, you facilitated it." Holland sounded more resigned than angry. Lindsey's nerves quivered.

"Things were confusing." It was a typical McDonald understatement, the best he could come up with under the circumstances. His life was a mess and his head was exploding, and he more than half expected Holland to call in Phil and have Lindsey's head blown off for real this time. The way he felt at the moment, it might be an improvement.

"Things are often confusing for you, aren't they, Lindsey?"

Smug son of a bitch. There were times when he entertained the notion that killing his boss would be worth the hell he'd go through afterward. Usually right after he'd done something amazingly stupid and Holland was calling him on it. Like now.

"Especially, it seems, when it comes to this woman. You've allowed yourself to be ruled by your emotions."

There wasn't a thing he could say to that. Deciding it was time for a change of subject, as much as possible, Lindsey asked, "What about the guard?"

Holland was offhand. "Family's been notified. The police have a suspect in custody. It's handled." He straightened away from the desk and walked to the door. Lindsey didn't look up. So the next words took him by surprise. "You're off this project, Lindsey."

His hand raked his hair back from his face as he stared up at his boss. "I can find her!"

"You don't have to find her." Holland was looking amused again. "We picked her up two blocks from here."

Unable to stop himself, the words tumbled out, "She's safe?"

The amusement changed to exasperation. "We won't discuss it any further."

It was too much. After everything he'd gone through, everything he'd lost on this project, Lindsey couldn't contain his anger. "If you're thinking of handing this project over --"

Holland interrupted him _again_. Lindsey was getting used to never getting the chance to finish a sentence.

"This situation has gone too far out of control. I'm terminating the project." There was finality in Holland's voice. It stopped Lindsey in his tracks.

"Terminating?" He was impressed, distantly, that his voice didn't shake. Holland gave him a disgustingly kind look.

"Go home, Lindsey. Get some rest. We'll start fresh tomorrow."

He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he watched Holland leave, silently closing the door behind him. It was a combination of failure, unfulfilled expectations, and the difficulty of thinking hard through a headache that threatened to incapacitate him. Taking a deep, calming breath, using his underlying anger to fuel his determination as he'd done his entire life, he faced the inevitable.

There wasn't another damned thing he could do. He had to call Angel.

Gathering his briefcase, he fished for his cell phone in the side pocket and headed slowly for the elevator. Ignoring the 'Good night' from the guard in the lobby, he shouldered his way through the door and walked through the quiet, late night stillness of the parking garage. He was nearly to his car, balancing his briefcase with his prosthetic hand and listening for the ring connecting him to Angel Investigations, swallowing his pride in his fear for Darla and his need for Angel, when the floor went out from under his feet.

His head threatened to explode from the strain of the cord around his throat and the lack of oxygen. Angel's voice purred in his ear as his feet scrabbled for purchase on the concrete.

"Where is she?"

Choking around the garrote, Lindsey tried to tell him. "I was just -- " The cord pulled tight, taking him to his toes, cutting off his air. This was even worse than being interrupted by Holland. At least his boss let him breathe. Most of the time.

"Nope," Angel drawled. "You get just enough breath to tell me where she is. My advice? Don't waste it."

God, but the vampire could be stupid sometimes. In total frustration, unable to talk around the garrote cutting into his throat, exacerbating the bite wound Darla had given him that afternoon, Lindsey held the cell phone up so Angel could hear the tinny voice coming from it.

Cordelia Chase's perky voice sounded utterly out of place. "Angel Investigations! We help the helpless! How may we help you? ... Hello?"

The cord finally eased and Lindsey gasped for breath. "I was trying to call you. They're gonna kill her. You gotta stop it. Alright? She needs you. Please."

The cord tightened. His feet were dangling off the floor again. He was getting damned sick and tired of this.

"We both know you're a liar." Angel obviously needed some reassurance. He loosened the cord and Lindsey hastened to give it to him.

"It's true!" He put every ounce of sincerity he'd ever owned into the words. Angel glared at him.

"Where?"

Lindsey talked as fast as he could, given the circumstances. "At an abandoned bank on Figueroa and Ninth. Wolfram and Hart own the building. I'm pretty sure that's where they're gonna take her." As expected, even before he could finish the damned sentence, the cord tightened again. He gurgled and choked. Fuck, that hurt.

"You're pretty sure?" Angel sounded incredulous. Lindsey lost his temper, flailing his arms around in exasperation, unable to do much but hang there and splutter.

"I'm not exactly in the loop on this, alright?" If his tortured throat could have allowed him to yell, he would have. "That's where they do this sort of stuff. It'll be underground where the vaults used to be!" He could feel the cold bulk of Angel at his back, hand rock-steady on the cord that was strangling him. Angel was staring at the length of his neck, arched back and stretched by the pull of the garrote. Lindsey couldn't believe it, but he was actually getting hard. He wanted to cry. Wanted to cuss. Wanted to disown his traitorous body and kill something.

Starting with Angel.

Those eyes never left his throat. "If this is a trick," Angel growled in his ear, "just know I'll be coming back for you."

He finally dropped the cord, and Lindsey with it, right at his feet. Lindsey slid down the trunk of his car, hand going automatically to rub at his constricted throat, staring up at Angel through the hair falling in his face with a complicated mixture of lust, anger, appeal on Darla's behalf and pure hatred on his own. Angel stared first at his neck, then down at his ass. Lindsey shivered.

"Hell, I just might come back for you anyway."

Angel turned on his heel and stalked away. Lindsey stared after him, not sure if that had been a threat or a promise. He hated him. Wanted him. Hoped he got to Darla before the thugs could kill her.

More than half-hoped Angel'd come back for him after all.

It was a very long drive home. It was an even longer time before he dropped off to sleep. When he did, he dreamt of want, and need, and death, and blood, and strong hands holding him down.

Fresh would not be the best description for him the next morning. Death barely warmed over was much more apt.

Still angry, still on edge, both exhausted and wired, it took a second for the sight that met his eyes at the receptionist's desk to register.

Holland. Shaking hands with a smiling, balding, hook-nosed man. A man he remembered very clearly. A dead man whose body he'd stepped over in the course of Darla's botched escape. He stood there, rooted to the carpet, until Holland looked over at him.

Lindsey left the door open, dropping his briefcase on the desk and turning to watch his boss walk into the office. He put his hand in his pocket so the fist he couldn't unclench wouldn't be quite so noticeable. Holland turned to face him, mouth starting to move, and Lindsey beat him to the punch.

"You re-notify the family?"

There was that pseudo-fatherly gleam again. Lindsey wanted to gouge Holland's eyes out with a letter opener.

"Lindsey -- "

This time he interrupted Holland. "You played me. You played her."

Holland looked impressively reasonable. "We had to make you believe it, Lindsey."

Lindsey wasn't buying it. "Why?"

"Because she had to believe it. Because Angel has to." Holland exuded sincerity. It was grotesque. "The crisis needed to be real."

Rage burst the dam on his tongue, and words spilled out. "You think that now that you've driven her back to him that she's going to give him that perfect moment of happiness? That he's going to come over to our side? Won't happen. He's noble. He'll never take advantage of her. Not in this state. Not now." He wasn't the only one who'd fucked up here. Holland didn't appear the least perturbed. He never did. Lindsey was more convinced than ever that the man wasn't human.

"Lindsey, you don't understand our friend at all. We know there's no prospect for physical intimacy here, so you needn't torture yourself."

Over Darla? Or over Angel? Lindsey didn't ask, and Holland didn't press the issue. He stepped forward toward his boss, who straightened up to face him, recognizing a challenge when he saw one.

"Then what do you expect him to do?" He was as calm and reasonable as Holland himself. Lindsey saw the light of approval in his mentor's eyes.

"What he will do. What he must do." He smiled. "Save her soul."

Holland smiled genially and walked out. Lindsey stared after him in disbelief. Save her soul? What the hell was he talking about? Slowly, mind spinning, Lindsey walked over to his desk and settled into his chair. Angel had to come through. Had to save Darla's life. But save her soul?

The soul she called a cancer eating her from the inside out?

That wasn't what Darla wanted. Darla wanted to know who she was again. Darla wanted to be _Darla_ again, not some quivering, fear-filled, fully-soulled human. Lindsey stared at the documents on his desk, watching the words that made no sense blur into a hieroglyphic tangle.

How on earth did Holland expect Angel to save Darla's soul?

The question was still biting at him that night as he parked at home and walked into his living room. Exhausted by the last few weeks, especially the last two days, Lindsey tossed his briefcase on the table and consigned Wolfram and Hart and all its schemes to hell where they belonged. He was going to bed. Maybe in the morning his subconscious would have made some sense of all this nonsense.

Then again, it was one of Holland's plans. He'd probably never figure out what the hell was going on.

The touch of soft lips against his bruised throat pulled him out of a formless nightmare. There was a body in bed with him, soft, slender, feminine. Warm hands ran over his chest, sweetly-scented bright hair brushed over his jaw. A tongue swabbed lightly over the bite mark she'd left behind, and he took a deep breath.

"He got there in time."

The mouth stilled against his skin. Darla raised her head and stared down at his face. He brought his hand up and touched her cheekbone gently, tracing a bruise.

"Let's not talk about him, Lindsey." Her voice sang seduction to him, and he allowed himself to be drawn under by it willingly. They made love slowly, with a tenderness that was foreign to him and studied to her. Her hands were everywhere, knowledgeable, wanton hands that perfectly complimented her equally wicked and knowing mouth. When she finally pinned him against the linens and straddled him, he was panting, skin sheened with sweat, hair falling in his eyes. She smiled down at him as she sank down on him. He barely held a scream back behind his teeth.

"Lindsey. Lindsey, my pretty boy. My lovely, lovely boy, Lindsey. Such potential, my Lindsey, my lovely Lindsey."

The words were in cadence with her movements, and his world narrowed to the feel of her around him, her fingertips on his mouth, the weight of her breasts in his hands. Her thighs flexing over him, the hot slick clench of her around him, her voice winding through his mind, bending his thoughts to her will as her body subjugated his to hers.

In the dark, holding her against him in the aftermath, kissing her temple, her cheek, burying his face in her hair, he heard her whisper against him. "You have to help me, Lindsey. You will help me get what I want."

"Anything you need," he murmured back to her, and felt her smile against his skin.

When he woke the next morning, she was gone. He had a gut feeling she'd be back.

The work day passed in a productive haze. Energized from some of the best sex he'd ever had, vaguely upbeat about the future, he cut through his workload as if he was a demon himself. He argued a plea bargain down to the absolute minimum and one of the Firm's most useful clients walked out the door a free man, well, demon. He hammered out contracts that freed up for purchase two properties that would be extremely useful to Wolfram and Hart, one for the profit potential, one for the hidden wellspring of Power that could be put to use there. He found an incantation he'd been researching for months, and Holland was actually legitimately impressed with him. For the first time since the Raising, since he'd lost his hand, since he'd discovered that lust was as strong a tie from him to Angel as hatred, Lindsey felt like himself again.

That feeling ended abruptly at the door to his garage.

At least this time Angel didn't have a garrote at his throat. Not that it mattered. Big hands clamped on to his shoulders and pinned him to the wall. His feet still left the pavement. Lindsey barely managed to get his arm up in time to keep his face from bashing into the stone molding on the side of the wall. His prosthetic hand pressed into his cheek, the unyielding knuckles bruising his skin.

"Where is she?"

Deja vu all over again. Lindsey closed his eyes. He knew that Darla had escaped the Firm. Knew that Angel had let her down, even if he wasn't sure how. Knew that any moment Angel would put it together. Figure it out.

Smell her on him.

"I know about your clever little plan to trick me into making her a vampire again."

Lindsey froze. Holy shit. So _that's_ what Holland meant when he said that Angel would save her soul. Create in her an implacable enemy, an enemy who knew every one of Angel's defenses and wouldn't stop hammering at them until one of them was dead or both of them were vampires. If he hadn't been in shock, Lindsey would have found the whole thing funny.

"It didn't work."

Of course it did, you simple-minded idiot, just not the way you think. Lindsey growled into his plastic hand. Thankfully, the words were garbled. Angel moved up close against him, holding Lindsey to the wall with his body as much as his hands. Then his head lowered, and Lindsey could actually feel Angel staring at the bite mark on the side of his neck. In the silence, the only thing he could hear was his own heart beating and Angel.

Sniffing him.

Lindsey closed his eyes. This could get very ugly, very quickly. Angel was the territorial type. Darla was definitely his territory, even when he didn't, couldn't, give her what she wanted. Lindsey wanted to say something to distract Angel, but he couldn't think of a word, and even if he could, his face was still smashed against his prosthetic hand, and nothing he said would be heard. In the only self-defensive movement left to him, Lindsey went completely still.

"She laid with you."

Angel growled the words directly over the bite bruise on his neck, and he shivered. He was getting hard, and he closed his eyes in surrender. He couldn't fight Angel. He sure as hell couldn't fight Angel and his own body at the same time.

Long fingers closed over his windpipe and began to squeeze. He struggled, uselessly, instinctively, bucking back against Angel, hand scrabbling for a hold, muffled sounds escaping his throat. Angel's other hand slid down below Lindsey's arm, over his chest and down to his groin, grabbing his incipient erection and squeezing it as hard as his throat. Lindsey convulsed, instantly, utterly aroused.

"You _are_ twisted." Angel's voice, yet not Angel's, lighter, a definite brogue to it, the slightest tinge of admiration in it. Lindsey gurgled, and the pressure at his throat eased as the pressure on his cock tightened. He bucked again, into the hold this time, not against it.

The head ducked once more, and this time Lindsey felt the unfamiliar ridges brushing his jaw below his ear. A harsh tongue rasped over the bite Darla had given him, and teeth -- fangs -- closed over the skin. This time he couldn't quite keep the keening wail from escaping.

Angel didn't bite all the way down, didn't tear the side of his throat out as Lindsey had half-expected. He clenched his jaw just enough to draw blood, just enough to torment him with the sting, holding him there like a cat would hold a mouse, enjoying his struggles.

The only problem was Lindsey wasn't quite sure why he was struggling. He didn't know if he wanted Angel or Angelus; if he wanted to live or die; to have the vampire walk away or fuck him right there against the wall. If Holland thought _Darla_ confused Lindsey, it was a damned good thing his mentor couldn't see him with _Angel_. He'd have Lindsey committed.

Lindsey was pretty close to agreeing with that, himself. Angel was making him insane, finishing the job he'd started all those months ago. They'd been dancing around one another for over a year, and anticipation had mixed with arousal and anger until it was more unstable than nitroglycerine. One good jolt and they'd go up like a Beltane bonfire.

Angel ripped his jacket and shirt off his back with one inhumanly-strong jerk.

Hello, jolt. It was a damned good thing he'd taken his tie off on the road home, or the bastard'd've broken Lindsey's neck. Cold air and cold solid flesh blanketed him; a strong hand milked him; fanged jaws worked at the side of his throat.

Lindsey came in his pants against Angel's palm as Angel bit into him again. Angel's other hand slid from the ruins of his suit jacket down to his belt, stripping his pants off Lindsey as efficiently as he'd stripped the top half of him. Lindsey felt a hand swiping at his still-spitting cock and couldn't do a thing but hang there, shoved against the wall, tasting his own tears on the cold plastic of his prosthetic hand, as Angel used his own semen to slick and loosen him.

The first thrust felt like it would rip him apart. The second and third went deeper, lifting him off his feet and scraping his chest and belly against the side of the wall. He wasn't surprised to feel himself relax and open almost immediately, and start to get hard again soon after that. Lindsey was getting almost accustomed to his body doing whatever the hell it wanted with Angel and leaving his brain behind.

His thoughts were in a fugue state, a temporary flight _from_ reality being the only way he could deal _with_ reality. His body was Angel's, as it had been Darla's the night before, only even more strongly. Angel had the prior claim and the longer history with him, more time to weave the thread that bound them together. There was hatred and anger in Angel, as well as in Lindsey, tempered in both by lust and need neither wanted to admit.

It made for a volatile combination, inherently unstable and explosive. Angel was Angelus and they both were fucking Lindsey, who knew it and took it and reveled in it and rebelled against it, and couldn't do a damned thing but bear it until it was over. He came the second time, splattering against the wall, Angel's hands on his hips, his feet barely skimming the ground, his pants around his ankles, Angelus' fangs barely breaking the skin of his neck.

Blood was trickling slowly down over his collarbone and fluids were trickling down the inside of his thighs. The world had tilted on its axis and he was looking up at Angel, who wasn't Angelus anymore, who wasn't buried in him anymore, who was standing over him. Looming.

Again.

What was it with tall guys and looming? It got fucking irritating. The thought stung him that _none_ of this, including himself, was rational, and his mind stopped its little fugue dance and snapped back into place.

"This is your fault," Angel told him shortly, and Lindsey wondered wildly where the hell he'd gotten that from. "She should never have been raised."

Oh. Darla. Right. "Don't you think I know that?" His voice was painfully rusty. Too much screaming lately, too many attempts by Angel to choke him to death. His throat was strained both inside and out. Like the rest of him.

"Take care of her when you find her," Angel instructed him, then stared down at him for a moment before turning and striding away, his coat billowing behind him.

Lindsey looked after him resentfully. He was lying on his own pathway in his own mess, feeling like a truck had run over him, and Angel looked completely untouched. Lindsey didn't want to think about the fact that the whole time Angel had been fucking him, he'd been completely dressed while Lindsey himself was stripped and pinned to the wall. His cock twitched.

"Give it a rest," he rasped down at unruly flesh, and painfully dragged himself upright. So much for the world going right. Every time he thought that, something, usually Angel-related, hit him like a brick and left him in pieces.

The next day before work he hosed down the side of the garage. There was no way he needed the Firm's gardeners gossiping. Not that he expected his little escapade to go unnoticed. Wolfram and Hart videotaped everything. Orwell had been an amateur next to his bosses.

Putting the whole doomed project from his mind, he went in to the office the next day and proceeded to prove why the Firm had put such confidence in him for the last few years. Nobody would suspect that he was living on pins and needles waiting for Angel to come back, or Darla to return, or any other Angel-tainted disaster to knock him on his ass again.

After a week, he relaxed a fraction. Not completely. Never completely. Not where Angel was concerned.

Not where Darla was concerned, either. It was a good thing. On the evening of the ninth day after Angel's 'visit' Lindsey got a call on his private line. The number nobody but Holland ... and Angel ... and Darla knew. Deliberately ignoring what that fact said about his social life, he concentrated on Darla's voice purring in his ear.

"Lindsey. My lovely boy." She sounded stronger, more herself. Or more what he expected 'herself' to sound like.

"Hello, Darla," he answered softly, his fingers tightening around the cell phone.

"Come home. Now."

The call disconnected, and he pulled the cell phone away from his ear, staring at it for a full minute while his mind ran through possibilities. Glancing out the window at the lights of LA, he wondered what exactly she had planned. And what had put that confidence back in her voice. Still trying to work it out, he headed for his car.

He was no closer to a solution when he pulled into the garage. In the shadows next to the side door, a few feet from where Angel had attacked him, a petite brunette with dark, shining eyes smiled at him. He stilled, staring at her.

"Oooh," the woman sighed, staring back at him with an unnerving hunger. "Grandmother's got _good_ taste. But does it taste good?"

"Don't call me that," Darla's voice snapped out behind him.

Lindsey glanced over his shoulder. There was a rush of movement, and the brunette was right in front of him, crowding him against the wall. He caught his breath.

"Hmm, smells yummy," she sighed, eyes closing, tongue peeking out to sweep over her lips.

She was gorgeous. Lindsey felt himself flush, and wondered what the hell was going on.

"Drusilla!" Darla's voice was sharper now, and Lindsey could see her, stalking forward from the far shadows like a lioness on the hunt. A slight whine brought his attention back to the woman who was nearly climbing his body.

Drusilla. The name rang a bell. He blinked, memory fitting the pieces together. Shit, he thought wildly, watching her tongue sweep her lips again. Drusilla. Angel's Childe. First Angel, then his Sire, then his Childe. It really did run in the family. God forbid he should ever meet William the Bloody. Lindsey opened his mouth to ask what was going on when Darla clamped a hand on Dru's shoulder and pulled her bodily away from Lindsey.

"Shoo," she clucked impatiently. Drusilla gave her a wounded look, but Darla was concentrating on Lindsey, and he was helpless to do anything but stare back.

She was a vampire again. She was _Darla_ again. He didn't know whether to run like hell or just give up and offer her his throat. The parts south of his waist were in favor of the latter; what few brain cells continued to function were advocating the former. Paralyzed as much by his own indecision as by the power of her presence, he simply stood there and watched her. She smiled. Even with the fangs and the ridges, she was beautiful.

"It's time to give me what I want, my lovely boy," she crooned at him, nuzzling his chin up and tracing the length of his throat with her tongue. Down the tendon, lingering over the vein, the exact same spot she'd bitten as a human.

This time, he wouldn't be able to get away. The thought chilled him to the bone, dampening his arousal, fear finally chasing off the last of fascination. He didn't want this.

She did.

His mind raced, trying to find an out. He managed to speak, amazed at how calm he sounded. "What precisely is it you want, Darla?" His drawl was thick as honey.

The prick of a fang against the barely healed scabs where Angel had bitten him made his throat close up. "What do I want, my lovely Lindsey? For my pretty boy to attain his potential. All that darkness lying fallow inside you, just waiting for its chance to blossom."

She licked him, where she'd nipped him, and he shuddered. "Then the two of us are going to go do what I should have done a hundred years ago." Her voice turned icy. "We're going to turn my darling boy back to the dust he should have been when he got his cursed soul. What he earned when he refused to take mine away. He said he couldn't. He meant he wouldn't. We will."

He did his best to project acceptance, acquiescence, forcing his body to arch against hers, and she drew away slightly, gathering herself to strike. Her eyes closed in delight, a smile curving her ridged features. Lindsey took advantage of her momentary distraction to duck out and to the side of her, using her hold on him as leverage, spinning around and sending her slamming into the wall. Her hands jarred loose and he took off, running as fast as he could for the door, and the sharpened stakes, holy water and very large crosses he kept there.

He hit a wall before he made it that far. He bounced off Angel and landed flat on his back at Angel's feet.

It was becoming a habit.

From behind him he heard a flurry of movement, and a high-pitched squeal of delight from Drusilla. Angel stepped over him, then stood between him and the female vampires. It dawned on Lindsey that Angel was actually protecting him. Once the shock wore off, he pulled himself together enough to get the hell out of the way. He tried to make for the side path to the door, but Dru was there.

He cowered back behind Angel, trying his best to disappear, refusing to let pride stand in the way of self-preservation. It was easy. He was a lawyer. He was good at it. He'd had a lot of practice.

Angel straightened up, his body square in the path between Darla and Lindsey, and said, quietly, "Hello, Dru. Darla."

Dru started chattering dreamily. Angel ignored her, concentrating on Darla. Her face had smoothed out into its usual beauty.

"My darling boy," she greeted him. There was more hatred than love in the phrase. "Would you like a treat?" She gestured at Lindsey. Lindsey glared at her from around Angel's shoulder.

"Thank you," Angel responded politely, "but I've already had him."

Lindsey transferred the glare to the back of Angel's head. He was just as oblivious as she'd been.

"And I'm on a diet. It doesn't include humans. Or lawyers."

"Can I have him, then, Papa? He's pretty!" Dru sounded anxious to please, or perhaps simply hungry. Lindsey shrunk further behind Angel. Both Angel and Darla continued to ignore her. Lindsey watched, narrow-eyed, as the brunette gazed sadly at her Sire, even more sadly at her Sire's Sire, then turned to beam dreamily at him.

He swallowed and inched around as far behind Angel as he could get, knowing he was being a coward, but so unnerved by Dru's longing and Darla's demands that he felt it was the only safe place he could be. Which was, in itself, a frightening thought, when Angel was equated in Lindsey's mind with _safety_. When had his life spiraled so completely out of control?

Trying to avoid listening to the tiny mewling sounds Drusilla was making as she inched her way closer to him, Lindsey tuned in to the intense, hissed argument between Darla and her Childe. There was a century of pain spilling out into the open between them.

"You've cast me out since I was given this soul, but who was responsible for it in the first place, Darla? I didn't ask for a Gypsy for my birthday."

Lindsey shook his head. Still playing the blame game, only this time sharing it. It wasn't like Angel to share.

"You could have taken your revenge!" Darla's eyes were glowing yellow, and her teeth were lengthening. Lindsey knew he should be repulsed and wondered if it was too many years working for Wolfram and Hart that accounted for only feeling arousal, or if he'd been insane long before ever becoming a lawyer. He was still wondering about that when Angel's voice burst across his thoughts.

"I know you don't believe in hell! But I was there! I survived it, I wanted to die, wanted to simply stop existing, and I couldn't. I won't send you there. You have the chance to escape, a second chance I'd die for, a second chance I'm working my ass off to get, and I won't take it away from you. I can't damn you. I can't and I won't."

"You don't have to, Angel," Darla snarled in response, her facing transmuting into its vampiric form. Lindsey shuddered. Ugly as a mud fence and still a complete turn-on. There was definitely something wrong with his wiring. "Your little lark did it for me. Did what you refused to do. Gave me back myself!"

Angel stood very still, nodding his head slowly. Lindsey could feel him shaking across the few inches that separated them. "I'm sorry," Angel said so quietly for a minute Lindsey wasn't sure he'd heard the words.

"Yes, too sorry to bother with any longer," Darla spat at him.

Lindsey yelped in surprise as clawed fingers wrapped around his arm and yanked him out from behind Angel. In his fascination with the two older vampires having it out, he'd completely forgotten Dru.

His mistake.

"I've got him, Grandmother! Lovely boy, all yours. Want to come play with us, Angelus?" Drusilla chirped.

Lindsey tugged at his arm. She was solid as rock. For such an ethereal-looking little thing, there was no doubt she was still a vampire, and ten times stronger than he was. Christ, he thought dismally, even the ones that are shorter than I am can still hold me down. His skin itched, and he determinedly ignored the little spike of arousal that came with the thought of being the prize candy in a Darla/Angel/Drusilla three-way. Not that he'd survive long enough to enjoy it.

Probably not, anyway.

"I won't make the same mistake with this one that I did with you, Angelus," Darla informed him coldly.

Lindsey looked from one to the other, staying as calm as possible, unobtrusively yanking at his arm to try to break Dru's hold and running through his mental catalog of every anti-vampire incantation he could remember. Unfortunately, all of them required props of one kind or another, and while he had most of them on hand, they were inside the house, and he and his tormentors were still outside next to the garage. Unfortunate that it was still so many hours until sunrise.

Then Darla whirled to strike at him, Drusilla tugged possessively on his arm, and Angel interposed himself between his Sire and Lindsey. It quickly degenerated into the weirdest fight Lindsey had ever seen. Darla kept striking out at Angel, inflicting small wounds, baiting him, trying to call forth Angelus, certain she'd have an ally in the demon. Angel remained in complete command of the situation, trying to defend himself without actually striking out at Darla, carefully keeping his demon aspect under iron-clad control.

On the sidelines, Drusilla kept trying to kiss Lindsey. On the neck. Fangs first.

Caught between trying to get around the battling vampires and into his house where the weapons were kept, fending off Drusilla, still amorous or hungry or just attention-starved, and half-tempted to grab a bucket of holy water and throw it over the lot of them, Lindsey stayed where he was and waited to see what would happen next. Beside him, Drusilla became increasingly distracted and disturbed by the fight between Angel and Darla. Eventually, Darla caught Angel a clout across the chin that drew blood, and some of it spattered across Dru's face. She reacted as if it was vitriol.

Shrieking "Lost! Lost! All souls lost!" or words to that effect, she ran off into the night. Lindsey stared after her for a moment. Then he shook his head in bemusement. When Angelus drove someone nuts, it really stuck. Darla's infuriated shriek brought his attention back to the fight.

Talk about insanity defined.

Angel was twice her size, far superior a fighter, and he was about to lose the battle. His hands were wrapped around Darla's wrists, holding her off, and he was shouting over her screaming.

"It can't and will never be the same between us! I'm fighting for things you've never held dear and you can never understand why I need so desperately to be redeemed." She finally stopped screaming and stared up at him, tears streaming down her face. His voice softened, a plea under the roughened brogue. "You only had nothingness while you were dead. I spent centuries in hell. I don't want to go back."

The fight went out of her, and he slowly dropped her wrists. He leaned forward as if to kiss her, and she turned her face away. Angel took a step back, then reached out, grabbing Lindsey by the shoulder and pushing him down the walkway toward the house. Lindsey went forward willingly but paused at the door, unlocking it by touch, eyes still locked on Darla.

She was watching Angel as he turned his back on her and started to walk away.

Angel didn't see her pull the stake from her coat pocket and start forward. He also didn't see the look of hopeless defeat on her face as she moved.

Lindsey did.

He didn't have to think about what he did next. It was a good thing; there was no time to think, barely time to act. He reached around the corner of the door to the three foot long stake he kept next to the frame. With an aim born of desperation and the muscle memory of three years of javelin throwing in college, he cocked his arm and let fly.

Angel turned as Darla screamed. He barely missed being staked through the heart by her as she lunged forward. The stake Lindsey had thrown struck her back a split second before her own blow landed, and Angel took it through the thigh. Disintegration spread both directions from the point of impact of the stake in her heart, and Angel had one last chance to look in Darla's eyes before she turned to dust under his hands.

Lindsey knew he should go inside and lock the door and start every magickal spell he could find to keep Angel away from him. Unfortunately, his legs wouldn't work. He couldn't move. Angel looked up, rage and betrayal blinding him to everything but Lindsey. Blood lust and murder were in his eyes as he wrenched the stake from his thigh and took the few steps necessary to make it to Lindsey's side. The stake was in his hand, the point at Lindsey's heart, Angel's blood and Darla's dust making a streak down the front of Lindsey's shirt.

After the fury and noise of the earlier confrontation, it was eerily quiet. All Lindsey could hear was the muted rumble of traffic, the wind in the trees behind him, the sound of his heart racing. Angel was leaning on the stake and it moved with every breath Lindsey took. Vampire and man stared together at the filthy, bloody piece of sharpened wood just a thin barrier of skin and bone from the heart beating beneath it.

With an inarticulate growl that was half-moan, half-scream, Angel threw the stake aside and grabbed Lindsey by the back of the neck. Feeling himself pulled off his feet yet again, Lindsey reached up with his good hand and took hold of the only thing within reach -- Angel's shirt-front. He hung there, eyes squeezed shut, trying to breathe, trying not to panic, as Angel's mouth, fully fanged, hovered a spare half inch over Lindsey's neck. He knew, this time, Angel wouldn't stop. This time, he'd be dead.

Or worse. Sired by a demon who hated him, probably dusted before he even had a chance to get to know who he was. He groaned internally. God, not even turned, and already having an identity crisis. Was this, also, a tendency in Darla's children? Or was it just contagious from overexposure to Angel?

"Go ahead and do it, damn you!" he heard himself cry, then snapped his mouth closed, appalled. His eyes flew open. Then Angel did as Lindsey'd apparently instinctively expected him to do.

He backed off. There was something to be said for reverse psychology. And perhaps Lindsey understood Angel a little better than Holland thought he did.

Angel didn't go very far. Just far enough to stop drooling down Lindsey's neck. Lindsey glared up at him.

"What?" he barked.

"Why'd you kill her?" Angel asked, face smoothing back into familiar human-appearing lines.

The anger bled out of Lindsey, and he found himself sagging against Angel. Surprisingly enough, Angel allowed it. His hands curved around Lindsey's back and held him upright. Lindsey started to speak, and only realized when he tasted salt on his lips that he was crying.

"It was what she needed."

"Not what she wanted. Dru gave her that." The words were laden with pain.

Lindsey shook his head. "What she needed, not what she wanted. That's what was important. What she needed was for the pain to end. Wouldn't have happened if she'd staked you."

Pulling himself from Angel's loose embrace with more effort than it should have taken, Lindsey leaned shakily against the wall. He looked up at Angel for a long time. Those steady, shadowed eyes stared back at him, giving nothing away.

Giving up for the moment, Lindsey turned to go into his house. Glancing over his shoulder, he added, "It's what you need, too, but for you, it never will."

He didn't wait for a response, just turned back and headed into the living room. Behind him, he heard a very soft, "I don't want it to."

Refusing to turn around, Lindsey said quietly, "I know." The only answer he received in turn was silence. When he'd regained his composure and the tears finally stopped leaking from his eyes, he turned back.

Angel was gone.

Lindsey closed and locked the door, muttering in Latin and Greek, binding the perimeter, needing the extra layer of security if he was going to get any sleep that night. Not that he expected anything but nightmares. Pouring a small snifter of brandy, he staggered to the couch and sank down on the cushions.

Eventually, he lifted his glass in a toast. "To Darla. May you simply cease to be." He didn't want to think he'd sent her to hell. Not that he had much conscience for it to weigh upon; he just didn't think hell was any place for Darla.

Staring out through the window at the darkened skies beyond, he took a deep, shaky breath, and wondered how long it would be before Angel needed the pain to stop, too.

He had a feeling he was going to be waiting a very long time.

 

_fini_

 


End file.
